


It would be easier

by The_Watchers_Crown



Series: Statement Incomplete [8]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:11:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Watchers_Crown/pseuds/The_Watchers_Crown
Summary: Jon doesn’t want to hurt Martin. He has the sense it’s inevitable.





	It would be easier

**Author's Note:**

> Statement Incomplete now posted [in ongoing fic form](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329079).

A week passes, and then another.

Jon spends most of those nights at Martin’s flat. It happens without either of them mentioning it; they leave the Institute together, after Tim and Sasha have gone, and it doesn’t occur to Jon that he has a flat of his own until they’re climbing the stairs, Martin sneaking looks at him that are the offspring of surprise and giddiness. He goes home once, twice, three times, as Martin’s clothes don’t fit him, but those are the nights he finds himself in the Archive, thinking about the tunnels and Gertrude and blood-soaked desks. Those are the mornings that Martin comes in and takes one look at him before turning around to make tea, delivering it with a kiss to Jon’s temple. Jon finds that he prefers waking with his face in Martin’s chest.

They have dinner—they _cook_ dinner together, and Jon’s never liked cooking, finds it a waste of time, but he likes the fierce concentration on Martin’s face when he’s reading a recipe. They fix pasta one Friday, Martin standing over the stove with a wooden spoon in one hand. A bit of sauce finds its way onto the corner of his mouth, and Jon wonders, idly at first and then in a more burning way, what Martin would do if he were to lick it off. It occurs to him that the answer is readily available.

“Martin,” he says, and Martin looks at him; he leans in, swipes his tongue over Martin’s skin. Martin makes a sound that Jon would like to hear again, and Jon kisses him, allows himself to be crowded back toward the kitchen table, which isn’t sturdy enough for this, creaks protest and threat beneath Jon, who should care that it might give out with him on top of it, but doesn’t. They kiss until the water boils over. Martin jumps back, his face written over with shock, like he can’t believe he just did that, and scurries to the stove, and Jon is two parts satisfied, curiosity and something he can’t put a name to.

Jon spends the afternoon following reading on the couch while Martin is out looking at a potential flat; Martin returns with complaints about the landlord and takeaway from an Indian restaurant Jon mentioned once, offhand, months ago.

Martin sits against him on the couch, craning his neck to watch the way Jon forms his letters while filling in a crossword puzzle. Martin puts on music while a storm rages outside; they sit beneath a blanket, and Jon reads aloud from a book of poetry he found on a shelf, strains of piano and cracks of thunder in the background. Within a few days they’ve settled into a morning routine, taking it in turns to use the bathroom, working around each other in the kitchen. It’s sickeningly domestic.

They spend a considerable amount of time kissing. Not just on the table: under afternoon sunlight in Hyde Park; up against the front door, the doorknob digging into Jon’s back in a way that will bother him later, when his fingers aren’t tangled in Martin’s hair and Martin’s hands aren’t undoing the buttons of his shirt; on the couch, where Martin sucks a breathtakingly obvious mark onto Jon’s throat, forcing him into several days of turtlenecks; in bed, desperate sounds spilling loose from Martin’s lips when Jon twists his wrist just the right way, until Martin himself spills into Jon’s hand, and there’s that curiosity again, _what does Martin taste like_ , niggling until the moment it becomes insistent, which is when Jon licks his own palm, and it’s salty, bitter. Martin kisses him hard for that; he says, “Martin,” and he says, “please,” and he comes with Martin’s breath in his ear. He falls asleep that way, too.

Martin offers him a drawer, which he turns down, arguing that, “There’s no point when you’re moving soon,” though Martin has yet to make much headway in finding a new place to live. It’s senseless to refuse, as his shirts are already rotating their way through Martin’s closet and his shoes have an impermanently permanent home beside the door and he knows where Martin keeps the spare light bulbs. But there’s a stubbornly insistent part of him that says accepting a drawer is one step too far.

Jon hasn’t had Martin over to his own flat. He’s thought about it, come close to inviting him over—had the fleeting thought, while Martin bent over a notepad, upper lip caught in his teeth and hair falling into his eyes and more concentration on his face than a grocery list really warranted, that he might offer something completely out of the question. Each time he opens his mouth with an invitation on his tongue, his stomach clenches and the part of him that is paranoia, the part that seems to come into its own more with each passing day, that part whispers, _It could have been._

He knows it’s absurd. He knows _he_ _’s_ being absurd. If Martin were any part a killer, he’s had ample opportunity to put a knife through Jon’s back, turned and unguarded. It would be more sensible to confide in him. To tell Martin his fears and his suspicions. He should let Martin _help_ , or he should call this off; but he won’t call it off. That’s another thing he knows.

Jon doesn’t want to hurt Martin. He has the sense it’s inevitable. He has the sense Martin will let him.

It would be easier to end this if Martin didn’t look at him in wide-eyed surprise after every kiss, like he still expects to wake and find that this has all been a dream. It would be easier if Martin didn’t make his heart speed up like it’s involved in a poor action film. It would be easier if Martin didn’t make him feel so—good lord, is he happy? The sensation is so foreign as to be almost unrecognizable.

But it’s easier to sleep with his head tucked up under Martin’s chin in the too-small bed.

Now, Jon leaves his office, intent on locating the follow-up information for Jennifer Ling’s statement, which has vanished from his desk, so he can set about recording. Martin is at his own desk, laughing while Tim hovers beside him with his cell phone out.

“Come on, Martin,” Tim is saying, and Jon just watches, half-mesmerized by the way Martin’s eyes light up when he laughs. It makes him want to stride across the room and kiss him; but their coworkers are unaware, and he intends to keep it that way for a good long while. _If they did know, it would still be highly inappropriate,_ he reminds himself.

“I’m all right, Tim!” Martin says, a hint of exasperation to it, laced through with humor.

“You’ll like her!” Tim insists. Jon catches the thread of the conversation. “Look, Alicia’s into poetry, she names all the spiders she sees in her flat, and she’s pretty. And she likes the whole nerdy bookseller thing you’ve got going on.”

 _Nerdy bookseller thing._ Jon’s eyebrows lift.

Martin shakes his head. “I’m sure she’s lovely, but I’m not interested.” Jon clears his throat, and Martin’s eyes are on him immediately; the smile is the relieved sort. Perhaps a bit eager. “Jon! Did you need something?”

“Assistants who do their jobs,” Jon says dryly. “I see we’re spending our time productively today.”

Tim waves this off and crosses the room to show Jon his phone. There’s a picture, a woman with dark hair and a nice smile, standing in a copse of trees. “Martin needs to get out more. Don’t you think he should at least give it a shot? When d’you think he last had a date?”

“I think Martin’s personal life is nobody’s business but his own,” Jon says, wondering if last night qualifies as a date, Martin’s lips shaping sonnets on Jon’s wrists, in which case Martin’s last date was _quite_ recent indeed. “Does one of you have the file from case 0131103?”

“I do.” Sasha rises from her desk, brushing nothing off of her skirt before bringing him one of the several case file boxes clustered at her work station. She smiles at him, tucks strands of her hair behind her ear. “I added a few more notes for you.”

“Thank you.” Jon eyes her, wary; he’s always wary now. He says, “Tim, leave Martin alone. I’m sure you have something more important to do. I can find something for you, if not.”

Tim scoffs, but returns to his desk, and Jon to his office, nudging the door shut behind him.

It’s not until later, after Jon’s finished recording Ms. Ling’s statement—an unfortunate, violent case, one that makes him glad the additional materials don’t include any cell phone recordings—that Martin lets himself into the office, a familiar smile on his face, one that might have needled Jon before, one that he’s come to like. He’s also got tea. Some things remain unchanged. “You rescued me earlier.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “I’m sure I don’t want to know what brought that on.”

“Tim being Tim. So.” Martin sets his tea in front of him, a gleam in his eye. “Just to be clear, you don’t think I should agree to meet Tim’s friend for a drink?”

It feels like someone’s clenching down on Jon’s stomach. Seconds later, he places the sensation: possessiveness. He doesn’t take time to examine the feeling; he yanks Martin into a kiss, not caring that they’re at work, that Tim and Sasha may well be in the other room. It’s a short kiss, but one that leaves Martin’s breath shaking; Jon’s worked out how to do that, and there’s a smugness that accompanies, every time he does. “No,” he says, his own voice perfectly composed, “I don’t think so.”

Martin collects himself and laughs; it would be easier if his laugh wasn’t so nice. “I’m leaving for the day.” Jon glances at the clock, realizing only then that most of the day is gone, that it’s after five. “I was thinking about ordering Chinese. Are you staying much longer?”

“Not much,” Jon says. There are a few last items for him to tick off before he leaves. “I’ll see you at—yours.”

They share another kiss, this one chaste; Martin promises him an order of orange chicken, and then Jon is alone in the Archive. He considers the tunnels. He considers Tim’s desk, or Sasha’s, or…

“No,” he says, this time to himself, this time somewhat less composed. He thinks—he knows—he thinks that he knows—Martin did not kill Gertrude Robinson. Tim, or Sasha, or Elias, or someone, anyone else. Not the man he’s just been kissing, who spent fearful months living in the old document storage room. Jon wonders if he left anything behind; the thought pushes its way to the front of his mind before he can lock it away.

If Martin has left anything behind, Jon tells himself as he flicks on the light, he can take it home with him.

There, tucked close to the wall, is a small pile of composition books. Jon pulls them out, and pages through the first. It’s just poetry. He hasn’t yet read any of Martin’s poetry. Each time he mentions doing so, Martin loses color and shakes his head. So he shouldn’t read this poetry either. He takes a seat and the frisson of guilt is not enough to make him close the notebook.

It’s—well. Even at his most generous, Jon cannot bring himself to pretend the poems are anything but awful. He’s readying himself to stop reading, to slide these composition books into his bag and take them home to Martin, to fall into another evening of domesticity, when he turns the page and finds the beginnings of a letter. _I shouldn_ _’t read this,_ he thinks, as it’s addressed to Martin’s mother, and Martin doesn’t talk about his family. This is private.

_But._

This isn’t fair to Martin. Jon knows that, in his head. But it’s not his head doing the talking right now, just as it’s not his head that does the talking when Martin’s giving him that nervous little smile, when Martin’s mouth is on his own, when Martin’s talking to him about museum exhibits he’d like to go to, and would Jon like to go with him? Jon’s head, it seems, has little to offer as of late.

The letter makes no mention of Jane Prentiss, or of Martin moving into the Archive. The letter suggests that Martin lives a perfectly ordinary life. The letter mentions Jon twice—‘my boss,’ it says, and Jon spends a second wondering if there’s a newer letter that refers to ‘my boyfriend’ instead. The letter says that Martin has been lying. Jon reads that sentence again. Three times. Then four, and five, as though the words might change. _But I am worried about the others finding out I_ _’ve been lying._ He suddenly feels cold, almost numb.

But it can’t have been Martin.


End file.
